ArmA 3 Ballistics Overhaul Q&A

[Spartan0536 189]

Hello everyone, I wanted to make another thread, this one being dedicated to any questions you might have about my ballistics in general. Please note I have a very descriptive explanation of my calculations on the first post of my WIP thread which I will link to the post below. I wanted to separate this from my WIP and completed threads to make it easier for people to find the answers to their questions if there are any, all information obtained here should be reflected in my WIP thread and updated as necessary. At this point in time Bakerman, Ruthberg, and I completely agree that I have taken DEFAULT A3 ballistics to the absolute max, in fact they also think I might have gone a bit overboard with some of calculations, but that is just me ensuring the accuracy of my work. Please feel free to vote in the poll above and if you have any questions regarding my ballistics that have not been answered, leave a reply below.

LINK TO WIP PAGE FOR ANSWERS: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?173372-ArmA-III-Ballistics-Overhaul-WIP&p=2625749&viewfull=1#post2625749

[ruthberg 7]

Have you ever considered to minimize the drop difference instead of the velocity difference?

[Defunkt 431]

Why doesn't the OP of your ArmA 3 Ballistics Overhaul release thread include any data for 7.62×54, 7.62x39 & 5.45x39? These are (obviously) some of the most ubiquitous military rounds in the world.

[Spartan0536 189]

Have you ever considered to minimize the drop difference instead of the velocity difference?

To do that I would have to adjust the velocity, this would seriously hinder the performance of damage and penetration. With BI default code there is no way for me to get better drop compensation without introducing additional code which may have a performance impact. ArmA III by default has no parabolic arch, the only time you see a parabolic arch in any sense in default ArmA III is when you set the zeroing high and that's just the game compensating drop for you. If you took a weapon and made it capable of a dead 0m zero and fired you would not see an arch at all, you can view this vs your advanced ballistics mod or your code in ACE3 where a parabolic arch exists. TLDR version is that ArmA III's default ballistics engine is rather simplistic and does not calculate drop correctly, combine this with velocity being the prime factor in damage and penetration (which is realistic to a sense) and you get why I chose velocity matching vs drop matching.

Why doesn't the OP of your ArmA 3 Ballistics Overhaul release thread include any data for 7.62×54, 7.62x39 & 5.45x39? These are (obviously) some of the most ubiquitous military rounds in the world.

I have the data for most of them, and I am gathering more data for the RHS team, I however did not get around to calculating them for ArmA III yet, they will be ready soon. 7.62x39, 5.45x39 will most likely be the very first Russian rounds to come out in my version 3 ballistics, plus 1 very special Russian caliber for a very special Russian rifle for the RHS team.

[ruthberg 7]

Sorry, but I can't follow your explication. Let's look at the Berger Mk248 Mod 1 round (MV: 841 m/s, G1 BC: 0.607):

Minimal drop difference:

MaxRange (m): 1000
MuzzleVelocity (m/s): 841
Max. velocity difference (m/s): 16.11
Max. drop difference (cm): 3.91
Max. tof difference (ms): 14.0
Optimal airFriction: -0.0006431

Minimal velocity difference:

MaxRange (m): 1000
MuzzleVelocity (m/s): 841
Max. velocity difference (m/s): 8
Max. drop difference (cm): 14.3
Max. tof difference (ms): 9.0
Optimal airFriction: -0.00066119

Optimizing the airFriction for a minimal velocity difference lets you end up with a far greater drop difference.

Of course, both types have advantages and disadvantages.

[Spartan0536 189]

I used a 26 inch barrel for my ballistics in the AWM from HLC, I belive you might have been using the 24 inch barrel which has quite a difference in velocity as is the case with hot loaded magnum rounds.

http://www.bergerbullets.com/images/articles/WEZ_300_Win_Mag.pdf

[ruthberg 7]

The muzzle velocity does not really matter, when it comes to making the decision between optimizing for a minimum velocity- or a minimum drop difference. But, for the sake of completeness:

Minimal drop difference:

MaxRange (m): 1000
MuzzleVelocity (m/s): 899
Max. velocity difference (m/s): 18.91
Max. drop difference (cm): 3.36
Max. tof difference (ms): 13.0
Optimal airFriction: 0.00062461

Minimal velocity difference:

Ammo Class: HLC_300WM_BTHP
MaxRange (m): 1000
MuzzleVelocity (m/s): 899
Max. velocity difference (m/s): 9
Max. drop difference (cm): 14.21
Max. tof difference (ms): 9.0
Optimal airFriction: 0.00064485

[Spartan0536 189]

Sorry for the short reply Ruthberg, I was on my way to work for a late evening shift. The reason why I opted for a minimal velocity difference over minimal drop or a mix of the two is that velocity plays a major factor in damage and penetration which is what most ArmA III users are more concerned with over drop. Most ArmA III players see drop as configured by the optic/sight they are using and that's about it, in the debate of slightly more damage/penetration vs drop, the damage/penetration seems to be a more important factor. I discussed this briefly with a few developers and some of my clan mates and the result was unanimous in favor of more damage/penetration as that is what they rely on more than compensating for drop.

[Defunkt 431]

I have the data for most of them, and I am gathering more data for the RHS team, I however did not get around to calculating them for ArmA III yet, they will be ready soon. 7.62x39, 5.45x39 will most likely be the very first Russian rounds to come out in my version 3 ballistics, plus 1 very special Russian caliber for a very special Russian rifle for the RHS team.

Thanks, good to hear (and also that you're providing data to RHS). Still hopeful that at some point we might see your calculations in a JAM style addon backed by a GitHub repository config that all mods might reference (if they prefer not to have a dependency on JAM).

[Spartan0536 189]

Thanks, good to hear (and also that you're providing data to RHS). Still hopeful that at some point we might see your calculations in a JAM style addon backed by a GitHub repository config that all mods might reference (if they prefer not to have a dependency on JAM).

Just waiting for Robalo to get with me on ideas for JAM, one of the big ideas is to find a no performance hit magazine workaround so that I do not have to write configs for every barrel length per magazine. It would be a single library that would link to a magazine and gun init so that the ballistics would be correct and you could swap mags to your friends and the ballistics would be correct for their guns as well.

[Spartan0536 189]

Update: I am posting this here for ease of viewing, this will let you know what I have been up to recently (besides gaming).....

Months back I was asking around for opinions on where I should go regarding accuracy or magazine compatibility. The results ended up being heavily in favor for magazine compatibility so that you could swap mags with allies while in the field if they are using the same caliber weapon as you and the same mag type.

This has presented many problems for me in the way I have been doing things, I was forced to use BI's method of barrel length manipulation, which is a pain in the *** and ends up messing up my hard work big time. In fact some values were as far off as 40% for some long range rifles. This to me is just too unacceptable, it just drives me up the wall and makes my work useless. There are 3 solutions, 2 of them I do not favor, the last one that I will list is my preferred way but I will need lots of help.

 Solution 1:
Use only FMJ/Ball ammunition and get fairly accurate ballistics 5-8% deviation, while keeping magazine compatibility and getting barrel lengths calculated.

 

 

Solution 2:

Get all ammunition types available but only have 1 barrel length available, ensuring magazine compatibility, but realism per barrel length is just not there.

 

 

Solution 3:

This is my preferred solution....
A new mod, the A3CBL (ArmA 3 Community Ballistics Library) project. This will serve as an ultra-lightweight mod dependency using a simple if=then scripting setup and ALL BI coding, no external calculators like in ACE3 to keep performance hits either negligible or non-existent. There are so many advantages to this that its quite obvious its the way to proceed, the issue for me is that I am not that good at scripting, I have the basic knowledge, but I am a hardware tech, not a software one. Since Robalo is constantly working on other projects I do not wish to bother him anymore, and just sitting around waiting has cost  me so much time, and other modders their time in waiting for me to deliver what I have promised.

The A3CBL project should be nothing but script text, thus making it no more than possibly 2-5 MB at MAX if even that, and again by using only BI parameters to source the ballistics data the performance impact should be negligible at worst. Another benefit to this is that it could also overwrite the default ballistics if wanted so that when playing singleplayer or co-op without other modded weapons you could get accurate ballistics (FMJ/Ball only as that is their only parameter). 

The reason behind the A3CBL name is that I have had many other modders help me get where I am, and its gonna take some more help to develop this final product that should be the end all be all of my ballistics issues and allow ALL 3rd party modders access to a library of ballistics that they only need to do short hand "copy-paste" thus making their development cycles shorter as well, this makes it easier for all weapons modders and the community gets a better experience.

Without further interruption of your time, what are your thoughts on all of this, I welcome any and all feedback.